Australian Targets

Monday, February 21, 2011

Last week saw a minor victory for climate and renewable energy campaigners with the Gillard Government re-instating funding for the solar flagship program which had originally been slashed as part of it's budget re-balancing to take account for the flood reconstruction package for rebuilding after the devastating floods in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia and the damage caused by Category 5 Tropical cyclone Yasi.

To get the Government's flood levy through the House of Representatives an agreement was struck with the Greens and independent members to return $100 million to the solar flagships program in the forward estimates. Discussions are continuing regarding long-term funding for disaster relief and options for a national insurance program as part of adaptation policies to meet the challenges of climate change.

“Today’s agreement gives the Australian solar thermal and PV industries a real chance to flourish and start replacing our old dirty coal fired power plants. I am particularly delighted that, for the first time, the government has acknowledged the role of feed-in tariffs in accepting our proposal for a solar industry roundtable,” Senator Milne said.

“The Greens and the solar industry have long argued for well-designed programs such as feed-in tariffs and loan guarantees to really drive the construction of baseload solar power plants. The solar industry was never properly consulted on the design of the Solar Flagships program, which has suffered from delays and poor implementation,” Senator Milne said.

Greens member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, said "Over recent weeks, people across the country and in my own electorate of Melbourne have said it makes no sense to cut the solar flagships program to fund flood reconstruction when climate change will only make extreme weather events more frequent and more severe in the future,” Mr Bandt said.

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About Me

Time to leap out of the slowly boiling pot of earth's warming climate
into action on climate mitigation and adaption.
I don't want my children to ask why I didn't act after reading the
scientific reports of climate risks. I write on the
effects of human induced climate change, sea level rise, ocean
acidification, biodiversity loss, environmental and social impacts of
global warming, and climate protests from a Melbourne Citizen
Journalist.

A member of environmental NGOs and community groups for 30 years in Australia, currently living in Melbourne. I have been a Citizen journalist for the Indymedia network in Australia and worldwide from 2000, as an editor and contributor with Australia Indymedia and the global features collective. Since 2013 I have contributed many stories to Margot Kingston's citizen journalism website: nofibs.com.au. (See my article archive) I also post photoessays to Flickr and videos to Youtube and edit wikipedia as user Tirin. My website is takver.com where I can be contacted through the feedback form, the most reliable way to contact me. I can also be contacted through facebook and on twitter as @takvera.